The collection of Sanskrit MSS. described below forms part of the library of the late Professor Fr. Max Müller, which was acquired in July, 1901, for the Japanese University of Tokiyo. It consists of 82 codices, of which 15 are tracings and 26 are transcripts of MSS. chiefly in the Berlin Royal Library, the Munich University Library, the Paris National Library, the India Office Library, and the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The remaining 41 MSS. were received from India through the agency of the late Dr. J. R. Ballantyne, of the Benares Sanskrit College, Professor Gr. Bühler, and Dr. FitzEdward Hall. All these MSS. represent Vedic works, chiefly connected with the Ṛgveda, and have been more or less used in the preparation of Professor Max Müller's edition of the Ṛgveda-saṁhitā with Sāyaṇa's Commentary.

This list is not exhaustive; it is thought, however, that it will be found to contain the names of the principal authorities cited by El Maqrīzi in this book, and, in the absence of an index to the only printed edition at present available, it is hoped that it may be of service to students of Egyptian history.

Before the Lógos of Heraclitus, as is usual in the cases of all originators, the thing ‘originated’ was already present in its germ for his use in the half-formed surmises of his predecessors.

For it was none other than Hesiod who used a word and expressed an idea which, together with the hints of other schemes, led up to the early concept. The first Greek naturalists believed, indeed, in an original substance of the universe, out of which everything arose and in which everything consisted; they also attributed to it life and motion, and gave it different names. One thought it was ‘water.’ Another called it the infinite (sic), as undefined substance matter. At other times they thought it was ‘air.’

The well-known history of Buddhism by Tāranātha—not to mention here the book of I-tsing—is filled with tales of the controversies between Buddhists and ‘orthodox’ teachers of the Mīmāṁsā, Nyāya, or Vedānta schools.

The mountainous region between the Assam Valley and Tibet, from Bhutan in the west to the Brahmaputra in the east, is inhabited by a series of tribes which are all of Tibeto-Burman stock.

In the title of my paper the stress is to be laid upon the word ‘etymological.’ The vocabulary does not contain all the Māldivian words which I collected during the last five or six years, either from printed books, or from manuscripts hitherto unpublished, or from the lips of Māldivian natives. For it was by no means my intention to compile a Māldivian dictionary for practical use: this would be premature; it may perhaps be done at some future time. For the present my purpose is purely philological. The present object is to publish linguistic materials which may serve as a basis for a scientific phonology of the Māldivian language. My vocabulary is, therefore, both an introduction and a supplement to the third part of my “Māldivian Studies,” which deals with that subject. First, I have excluded, of course, from my vocabulary the numerous words borrowed from Arabic, Persian, and Hindustani, as they do not belong to the original stock of the Māldivian dialect. But I have omitted also generally those words which cannot be explained in a satisfactory way by the help of phonetic laws confirmed by other etymologies which are not open to doubt. There remains, nevertheless, a sufficient number of words to show clearly the character of the Māldivian language. It is merely a dialect, and not even a very ancient dialect, of Sinhalese. This result is, I think, also of historical interest; for it appears from it that the Māldive islands were occupied by Sinhalese people, but hardly at an earlier period than about eight or nine centuries ago.

For convenience of reference, the following list of MSS. which have existed or do exist is reproduced from the J.R.A.S., July, 1900:—

I. Bābar's autograph MS.

II. Khwāja Kilān's MS.

III. (Humāyūn's transcript.)

IV. Elphinstone MS.

V. British Museum MS.

VI. India Office MS. (Bib. Leydeniana).

VII. Asiatic Society of Bengal MS.

VIII. Mysore MS. (Tīpū's).

IX. Bibliotheca Lindesiana MS.

X. Hyderābād MS.

XI. St. Petersburg University Library MS.

XII. St. Petersburg Foreign Office MS.

XIII. St. Petersburg Asiatic Museum MS. (Senkovskī).

XIV. Bukhārā MS.

XV. Nazar Bay Turkestānī MS.

Two questions, the early contact of Buddhism with Christianity, and the origins and character of Gnosticism, have attracted much attention of late Although these questions are independent of each other in the main, they happen to join hands in the case of the great Gnostic Basilides. I propose to show that the famous scheme of that arch-Gnostic was an attempt at fusing Buddhism with Christianity, and thus to throw some light upon the one question and the other.

South-East Persia, the history of which I propose to discuss very briefly, consists of the provinces of Kirmān and Persian Baluchistān, in which I have been travelling since 1893, and where I was commissioned to found a consulate in 1894. Before, however, approaching their history, it seems advisable to recapitulate the physical featuresof these desert provinces, which, aselsewhere, have mainly owed their history to their geographical conditions.

The past tense in Marāṭhī is formed by adding a suffix lā. The same suffix is also used in Bihārī, Oṛiyā, Bengali, and Gujarātī. This form has long been a puzzle to scholars. Mr. Beames, A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India, vol. iii, p. 135, compares the past tense in Slavonic languages; Dr. Hoernle, A Comparative Grammar of the Gaudian Languages, p. 139 f., derives la from the suffix ta of the past participle passive in Sanskrit; and Sir Charles Lyall, A Sketch of the Hindustani Language, Edinburgh, 1880, p. 48 f., thinks that la is a diminutive suffix added to the old past participle passive. This last view is essentially the same as that held by Dr. Grierson, who some time ago, and before I had arrived at any independent opinion regarding the question, told me that he derives la from the Prakrit suffix illa (Hemacandra, ii, 164).

Forty years ago Sir Alexander Cunningham, adopting a hint given by Professor H. H. Wilson, identified the Buddhist remains near Kasiā in the Gorakhpur District as marking the site of Kuśinagara, or Kusinārā, the traditional scene of the death of Gautama Buddha.